Grief is familiar to any of us who have been around for more than five minutes. But it is also one of the most complex things we experience. The many variables involved make it so: different causes, personalities, social norms, religious (or non-religious) beliefs, the time of day, and what you had for lunch can all play a role.
One value of poetry is giving voice to phenomena that are hard to categorize or express. The poem below will be in my upcoming book, A Song of Glass, and uses imagery I hope will resonate with others as it did with me.
Grief Is
Grief is the scuff of a chair
or the clearing of a throat
in a nearby room
you thought was empty.
A Wandering Minstrel 